Opinion: The Mar-a-Lago search, through the eyes of a veteran FBI agent

Let me start by stating the obvious.

The execution of a federal search warrant at the residence of a former U.S. president is more than an extraordinary occurrence.

Fact is, things like that just don’t happen.

Pick a presidential scandal in our history —Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra or Whitewater. It just doesn’t happen. Not until Monday, anyway, when a host of FBI special agents, lawful warrant in hand, rewrote the history books forever.

Now, let me tell you why the FBI search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday is such a big deal.

The former president of the United States is suspected of committing a crime. As obvious as that may seem given all that has transpired over the past seven years — yes, you would be spot on for thinking “duh” — the fact of the matter is that, as a nation of laws, we’ve never had a president who has been so antipathetic towards them.

Still, while no one, not even a former president, is above the law, the presumption of innocence is an important tenet of American jurisprudence. We, all of us, even corrupt former presidents, are afforded the rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution when it comes to things like searches and seizures, protections against self-incrimination, and the right to trial by jury.

Two centuries of justice under a constitutionally established rule of law ensures that.

Which is why the criticisms coming from the supporters rushing to the former president’s defense in the wake of the search make no sense. Those supporters, many of whom are lawyers, know what due process and the rules of evidence are. They claim to be well-versed in the Bill of Rights. What’s more, their phony outrage directly undermines that long tradition of American jurisprudence.

The FBI executes search warrants all the time. Contrary to the fearmongers and conspiracy theorists amongst us, they are not political acts. The reason for their use is simple and straightforward — to find evidence of a crime.

Monday’s activity at Mar-a-Lago was just the execution of a search warrant. An investigative step. While the former president’s own attorney has already indicated “paper” was seized — which means investigators got something — it must be reviewed and determined if it can support further investigation.

That said, I can’t help but think about what happened to Paul Manafort (the former president’s campaign manager) and Michael Cohen (his former personal attorney) after their residences were searched. The PC standards for them were very high, too, and yet look at what they yielded.

Indictments. Arrests. Convictions.

The FBI and its DOJ partners know what’s at stake. And they know what they must do to serve justice. It’s never an easy task, especially with a subject as wily (and lucky) as the former president, but this time I can’t help but feel like they are finally onto something that will stick.

What’s more, despite all the accusations the minority leader of the House of Representatives leveled at DOJ and the FBI in the aftermath of the search, the simple truth is that it was  the crass incompetence and blatant disregard for American values that have marred the former president’s cult of personality since its inception.

The cult, it seems, is finally collapsing under its own gross obesity. As it does, we may be getting to the point that the myth the former president could shoot someone on Fifth Ave. and not lose any votes is about to be shattered.

Frank Montoya Jr. is a retired FBI senior official who served as the national counterintelligence executive, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and special agent in charge of two FBI field offices. ©2022 New York Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.